Tales of suspense that incorporate obscure aspects of the supernatural from ancient civilizations have long enjoyed a popular following. Take William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" (1971), a huge best-seller and blockbuster film about the spine-chilling repercussions from exhuming an Iraqi demon.
William Kotzwinkle, best known as the creator of "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," spun a masterpiece in "The Game of Thirty," (1994) in which a New York detective is forced to match wits with a murderer using a board game once played by ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
Tibet — very much in the news these days for other reasons — has also been a long-standing favorite topic for novelists. The most famous example would almost certainly be James Hilton's immortal "Lost Horizon," the story of the mystical land of Shangri-La, published in 1933.
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